Title: On the Cutting Edge/Searching For the Perfect Web Site/A WebQuest

This webquest has adults (specifically teachers) work as individuals first to become experts in one area of web page development and then asks them to come together as a team to try and "sell" the CEO of a company (the instructor) on why their web page design is the "perfect" design.

Objectives:
To develop web design strategies for winning the war fought daily on the Internet.
To convince the CEO of the company that your team can design the "perfect website."
To provide (for the CEO) characteristics and examples of this "perfect website."
To create a "design grid" listing four to six of the characteristics of a "perfect website."

NET Standards connection:

In this webquest, teachers have the opportunity to demonstrate continual growth in technology knowledge and skills to stay abreast of current and emerging technologies by investigating the various components of designing a web site. In this lesson, they are also asked to identify and locate technology resources and evaluate them for accuracy and suitability as well as planning a designing an effective learning environment that is supported by technology. This is a big part of this lesson. Most importantly, this webquest lets teachers use technology to enhance their personal productivity and professional practice as a lifelong learner. They will use the created website to communicate and collaborate with peers, parents, and the community at large in order to enhance student learning.

One of the biggest factors for adult learners is relevancy. I could not think of a more relevant topic for teachers than planning and designing a web page for their classroom. More and more districts and principals are making classroom websites mandatory. Teachers are faced with having to come up with these web pages without much experience with regard to technology, much less creating a web site.

Situative Perspective Theory: The situative perspective theory emphasizes context, and is partly based on research evidence that much of one’s “work knowledge” is not transferred intact from what we learn in school, but it is constructed and reconstructed within the social and physical context of the workplace itself (e.g., Lave & Wenger, 1991). From the situative perspective, knowledge is composed of the conceptual and technological “tools” that belong to a working community. It includes the specialized language and expertise that form the basis of the community’s discourse. Learning takes place within the student’s “zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky, 1978)—that cognitive space representing the difference between work that the student can understand and perform alone versus work that can be accomplished only with mentor support. Once the zone has been closed by the student’s acquiring expertise on one type of task, mentors should help the student acquire a more complex task, so the performance bar is gradually raised.

Theory Connection: This webquest asks students (in this case, teachers) to go out and research the various parts of creating a web page. There are five "roles" on each team. One person serves as the he Information Architect. This is the person who designs the navigation for the site and makes the site easy to use. A second person serves as the Designer, who creates or obtains all of the images, giving the site its look and feel. Thirdly, someone must take on the role of the Programmer. The Programmer crafts all the code for the site, including back-end database interactions with the server. Then, there is the the Content Manager, who's main job is to research and write the text and decide what will be on each web page. Finally, one person acts as the Project Manager. This person must make certain that the group stays on task and completes the instructions (and project) on time.

Situative Perspective theorists believe that knowing and learning is a social process of acquiring/constructing and using information that is related to a situation.